Random musings on anything, just the right length to go with a cup of tea.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Music and the word "get"

Today, I brought music to the office. I have very little to do so I might as well do it to music.I don't know if you are familiar with www.pandora.com. It's called the "Music Genome Project". You make a "station" of the kind of music you want to hear and, from their vast archive, they select music based on either a genre or an artist. It's kind of similar to Project Gutenberg. I have two stations, Nat King Cole and Old Blind Dogs. The former is vocal jazz in the style of Nat. They play too much Tony Bennett, particularly the newer stuff, which I don't like. The latter is traditional Scottish music a bit more uptempo. This station taps into Celtic music and I've been exposed to groups I wouldn't have found otherwise. They have added my other favorite Scottish group, The Tannahill Weavers. The nice thing about this station is you rate the music you hear. If you are familiar with Yahoo Music, it's the same way. A "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down" gradually teaches the program to play music you will like. I would love to listen to it at work. But, our network has bans on certain kinds of content. No YouTube, as a for instance, and, unfortuately, no Pandora. According to a memo, too much bandwidth was being devoted to gaming and video and music streaming. I do know of one guy who plays a certain game I haven't discussed, yet, at the office during lunch hours, but I've not added that game to my computer. There are other game sites, like AOL games, that I can visit if I really need a game fix.The office is really quiet when most of us are out in the field. The phone has not been ringing a lot lately so the ambient sounds of the AC coming on and people entering the building and going to the job service office on the second floor as well as the traffic on busy Roosevelt Road to the north of the building are all you hear. I decided today I would bring in my tunes. I've listened to OBD's "Fit?" and I currently have the soundtrack from "Good Night and Good Luck" in the player. Yes, Pandora is linked to Amazon so if you want a certain CD after hearing a few cuts from it, you can order it. I dislike ordering from Amazon. I get 95% of my jazz from the Jazz Heritage Society.There's that word, "get". I've been pondering this word for a couple days now. A blogger I read announced on Sunday that he's "getting" a divorce. I "got" a divorce in 2001. It's what we say, but you can also "get" sick or "get" caught in traffic or "get" chicken pox. You can also holler at a spouse in the kitchen, "Honey? I'm off to the store to 'get' BBQ sauce and buns for the hamburgers. Do you need me to 'get' anything else?" Somehow, using the word to mean the action for obtaining hamburger buns diminished the hugely life-changing event of a divorce.But is there another option, a better synonym? Not really. You could use "procure" or "obtain" but that sounds ridiculously stilted. "The Marquis de Bleau 'e Fungi obtained a divorce from his 4th wife." That does sound like something the monied do, not us real people.I'm not sure what the word is to encompass all that "getting a divorce" implies. I often think, as many words as there are in the English language, there aren't words that specifically cover a feeling or emotion or action. This is one of those times. "I'm getting divorced." Three words that have years of emotion attached to them.I think I'll get out one of my Benny Goodman albums. His peppy clarinet is something I get. And, at lunch, Jon and I will go get office supplies since we're out of file folders. In the meantime, I need to get some letters written.

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About Me

It's taken awhile to realize I'm truly in the middle of the ages. I'm a sometimes grown-up but if you want to walk in the rain without an umbrella, I'm all in. I like cats and reading; writing and cooking; chocolate and playing World of Warcraft; hot tea and hot cocoa; the Iowa Hawkeyes and jazz; counted cross-stitch and Scotland; just sitting on the deck doing nothing but sitting and visiting museums to expand my knowledge; watching the sun come up and standing in a cornfield at night trying to find the constellations. Thanks to rheumatoid arthritis, I'm walking a road I didn't expect to be walking, but I'm trying to make that route fun. You'll find I comment on all sorts of things. Thanks for stopping by.